A Midnight Chat
by SomeKindofAuthor
Summary: This is set after Ari's funeral. Nudge is upset, but Max doesn't want to talk about it. So, in the middle of the night when she really can't take thinking about it anymore, she goes to Iggy. Kind of NudgexIggy, but more friendship than anything else. One.


**Summary: Set after Ari's funeral. Nudge is upset, but Max doesn't want to talk about it, so in the middle of the night when she really can't take thinking about it anymore, she goes to Iggy. Kind of NudgexIggy, but more friendship than anything else. Oneshot.**

"Are you up? Iggy, I need to talk." Nudge's voice woke me up. Not that I had gone into a terribly deep sleep. The heavy air throughout the room was suffocating, especially Angel's sobs as she cried herself to sleep. Max had not done anything so dramatic, but the pain in her voice as she told us to get to bed was enough to give me nightmares. In an effort to avoid those nightmares I had stayed up, alone in my thoughts. Only I wasn't alone anymore.

"What's stopping you?" I asked. I patted the floor next to me, inviting her in for a midnight chat. She sounded like she needed one.

Nudge sat down next to me, softly brushing her arm against my skin. I sat up, listening to see if anyone else was awake. But no, it was just us. Max's breaths, which had been ragged before, now escaped her calmly. Occasionally an uneven one would break the pattern, and often she gave out a whimper, but overall she was sound asleep.

"Max doesn't want to talk about it, I can tell," Nudge began. "She just wants to avoid the whole thing, as though it never happened. But it DID happen..." Nudge's voice trailed off there, sounding unsure of where to go next. I wanted to help her along, not out of impatience, but because her voice sounded so loaded down with sadness that I wanted to lift the load for her. Or at least lighten it. I thought of searching around to grab her hand, but I didn't, out of fear of grabbing something else. We sat in silence for a while, as Nudge struggled to get through this cross herself.

"Is this about Ari?" I asked. The silence that followed my question made me wonder if she'd gone back to sleep, but then she answered vehemently, and I knew she'd only been thinking.

"Yes. No. Kind of. It's about everything Ig. It's about us, and them, and--" Part of Nudge didn't want her to go on. She battled with herself to get this out. This time I DID reach out for her hand. I found it, and squeezed. Nudge didn't say thank you, but I knew that I'd helped her with her burden, as she continued. "They're kids, Ig." Even if I hadn't been touching her, I would've known that she was crying. You didn't sound like she did and not have a few thousand tears running down your cheeks. My heart hurt to hear her, but I didn't dare interrupt her.

"_WE'RE_ just kids. But at least we're not alone. We're a family, and we have Max. We'll get through this. But Ari... he had nothing. His dad abandoned him, and letthem turn him into a monster. Ari could have been normal. He's hardly older than Angel and he's DEAD." She didn't say it, but I knew what she was thinking as the same thought crossed my mind: What if Angel had been the one that died? "I can't stand thinking about Ari and I hardly knew him. What about the millions of others who I didn't know, but were as young as him --some even younger-- and died? They had no family. They didn't have a Max. No one knows that they even existed. No one knows that out there are millions of experiments tortured in Labs, forced to run tests, _every single day_. They were alone. They were alone in life-- and then Itex killed them. I can't imagine that. I can't imagine having _no one know_ that I was alive, and then dying. I can't-- I-- I--"

Nudge caved in then. I let go of her hand, and instead wrapped her entire body in my arms. She buried her head in my chest and I could feel the tear drops soak my shirt. I could feel her shaking in between my arms. We both moved with the force of her heavy breaths, as she mourned for Ari, and all those like him, who were killed, "expired", without a second thought. No one in the world gave a second thought about them.

In a flare up of fury I hated the people who did this to her. Itex. No twelve year old should have to feel this way. Then again, no seven year old should have to be subjected to the kind of pain Ari had been exposed to every day. This was a sick game Itex played with our lives, and the lives of thousands of children experiments everywhere. The whitecoats had fun toying with us, our DNA as the game piece. It was like a board game of chance: How long will this experiment live? Isn't that what Jeb was always telling Max? Life was a game.

"My worst fear--" I snapped to attention at the sound of her voice. The shaking had calmed down, and Nudge was ready to talk again. "My worst fear is that you all will die and _I'll_ be left--"

"I will never leave you," And yes, it was a completely cheesy thing to say. It was something a teenage Romeo might say to his Juliet. There was also the small problem that I shouldn't make promises like that. In the game that I was still in (otherwise known as my life), promises like that were difficult to keep, if not impossible. But I made it, and I was glad that I did because it calmed Nudge down and helped her to avoid another hysteria attack.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was the kind of breath that your therapist assures you will deliver you from panic. Did it work for her? It did. I no longer heard sounds of sobbing from Nudge. I released her from my grip; the shaking had stopped. Silence had returned. The only record that her crying jag had ever occurred was the salt-water soaking my shirt had received, and the red I knew her eyes to be.

We sat there awkwardly. She made no move to get up, and I said nothing to shoo her away. Finally I asked her if she wanted to sleep next to me tonight. Nudge gave me a grateful hug and went to get her blankets.

Maybe I couldn't promise not to die on her, and maybe I couldn't promise a long life for the Flock. But I could promise that as long as I was alive, I would keep her safe, and kick the crap out of anyone who ever made her cry like that ever again.

Nudge returned with her blanket and pillow. She set up camp next to me, and we both got comfy under our respective covers.

"Good night, Iggy," she told me sounding completely exhausted. Her voice held a trace of her former sadness, but the normal Nudge was slowly returning. Our talk had done something good for her, even if like most times with us, it was just her spilling her guts to me.

"'Night Nudge," I answered.

I waited until her breaths were soft and even, slipping into and meshing with the silence of the night. But while she slept semi-peacefully, my wet shirt reminded me of the anguished talk we'd just had, and everything that was said.

None of anything in our lives was fair. We had few blessings. Our days consisted of running, always running. There were several thousand people who wanted to slit our throats, and if that wasn't enough, there was the ever growing fear that at any time one of us could expire.

Even with all these faults against us, and even dealt the crappiest of hands, that night I vowed to protect what I had for as long as I could.

Because Life is a game. And I play to win.

**Author's Note: :clears throat: Ahem: Go Iggy!**

**-SomeKindofAuthor**


End file.
